What I like about MOTHER EARTH NEWS FAIRS is that they encourage an active, participatory human pres...

Joel Salatin is a farmer at the forefront of the trend toward local food and grass-fed meat. Many people first became familiar with Salatin’s complex and eco-minded approach to farming when he was featured in Michael Pollan’s bestselling book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. But Salatin also is well known within pasture-based farming and libertarian circles. He’s especially vocal about government regulations that make life difficult for the small farmer — his most recent book is titled Everything I Want to Do is Illegal. He’s also the author of You Can Farm and Holy Cows and Hog Heaven (excerpted here in Mother Earth News). Salatin kindly agreed to answer some questions for us about Polyface Farms. Hold onto your hat! Here are Salatin’s candid thoughts on government regulations, high grain prices, vegetarians and making money at farming.

Grass Fed and Beyond Organic

Tell us a little bit about Polyface Farm.We’re located eight miles southwest of Staunton, Va., in the Shenandoah Valley on 550 acres (100 open and 450 forest). We also lease four farms, totaling an additional 900 acres of pasture. We sell “salad bar” (grass-fed) beef; “pigaerator” pork; pastured poultry, both broilers and turkeys; pastured eggs and forage-based rabbits.

Your livestock and poultry are grass-fed, and your farm is “beyond organic.” Do you find people are familiar with those terms? More and more people are aware of the compromise and adulteration within the government-sanctioned organic certified community. Weary of 6,000-hen confinement laying houses with 3 feet dirt strip being labeled “certified organic,” patrons latch onto the “beyond organic” idea. It resonates with their disappointment over the government program. When Horizon battles Cornucopia, for instance, to keep its organic-certified industrial-scale dairies, consumer confidence falls.

Intuitively, people understand that the historical use of the word “organic” identified an idea and a paradigm rather than a visceral list of dos and don’ts. And now that the high prices have attracted unscrupulous growers who enter the movement for the money, people realize that no system can regulate integrity. That is why we have a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week, 365 day a year open-door policy. Anyone is welcome to visit at anytime to see anything, anywhere. Integrity can only be assured with this level of transparency.

When someone asks if we’re certified organic, we respond playfully: “Why would we want to stop there? We go beyond organic.” That response generally leads to an info-dense discussion and people come away with renewed awareness, rather than just another case of hardening of the categories.

How has the public’s attitude toward your products changed in the last few years? Do you find it easier to sell grass-fed meat now?Public awareness is definitely up. In the 1970s when I was selling grass-finished beef and pastured poultry, nobody had even heard of the word “organic,” much less “grass finished.” Now, thanks to New York Times bestselling authors like Jo Robinson and Michael Pollan, the awareness is huge.

The market limitations are primarily twofold. One is the supply. The artistry and choreography required to move animals around on palatable pasture year-round in any given bio-region takes years to learn. This is not cookie-cutter rations formulated from annuals stored in a big grain bin. The producer deals with on-farm variables such as seasonality, wet, dry, hot, cold, genetic physiology, minerals and a host of others. Beyond that, the Food Safety and Inspection Service has successfully annihilated most community-based, appropriately sized abattoirs (slaughterhouses) and criminalized on-farm processing. This is by far the major impediment to the local integrity of food.

That’s all on the production/processing end. The second market limitation has to do with entry-level requirements for major marketing channels. From liability insurance to net-90-day payment to slotting fees, large buyers share a Wall-Street business mentality. That mentality aggressively shuns competition, especially from little innovators. But every time industrial food hiccups with recalls and more diseases, another wave of opt-outers hits the local, integrity food scene. Exciting times.

On Being a Farmer

When did you decide you wanted to be a farmer?
As early as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a farmer. I love growing things. I appreciate the emotional steadiness of animals. Every day when I go to move the cow herd, they are glad to see me. The pigs always come over to talk. None of these critters ever asks you to fill out licenses or threatens litigation. They never talk behind your back or conspire to overthrow you. And to watch the land heal, with ever-growing mounds of earthworm castings, is better than any video. Indeed, walking through a dew-speckled pasture in the early morning after a blessed nighttime thunderstorm, the ground literally covered with copulating earthworms — what could be more magical than that?

I had my own laying hen flock at 10 years old, pedaling eggs on my bicycle to neighbors, selling them to families in church. The fast-paced, frenzied urban life disconnected from the ponds, the trees and the pasture never held much allure for me. Go away? Why? Where? I think I was planted here. I think God tends my soul here. It’s not for everyone, but it satiates my soul with wonder and gratitude.

What’s changed about your philosophy of farming over the years?Like all geezers, I’ve learned a lot just through experience. Because I’m a third generation-Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist lunatic I don’t have a conversion epiphany to share. I’ve just always been weird.

Initially, I thought I would need to work off-farm to stay here, and I learned that wasn’t true. I encourage young people to follow their passion and go ahead and jump. If you wait until all the stars line up, you’ll never do it. In recent years, I’d say my biggest change has been regarding economies of scale and marketing realities. Twenty years ago my vision for the food system in Virginia was thousands of little mom and pop farms like ours serving their neighbors. I no longer think that is viable for two reasons. First, urban centers would be hard pressed to grow all their own food within their communities. Second, most farmers are marketing Neanderthals. Either they really don’t want to be around people, or they don’t know how to interact with them. A successful marketer needs to be a bit theatrical; a storyteller, schmoozer, gregarious type. And that’s not typical, especially among John Deere jockeys.

What’s the answer? I don’t know, but what I’ve come up with is what I call food clusters. These require production, processing, marketing, accounting, distribution and customers — these six components make a whole. The cluster can be farmer-driven, customer-driven, even distribution-driven initially. But once these six components are in place, it can micro-duplicate the industrial on a bio-regional or foodshed scale, which includes urban centers. I think a local integrity food system could supplant the opaque industrial one in Virginia, but realistically it would comprise several hundred or a thousand $5-$10 million food clusters rather than several thousand mom and pop $100,000 fully-integrated enterprises. I certainly never thought our farm would top $1 million in annual sales, but it happened. We still have no business plan or marketing targets. But we’ve been blessed with a family of enough variety to put together these six foundations for a whole, and that has made all the difference. And I’m a schmoozer.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a farmer?Anyone familiar with me would have to smile at this question, knowing that my answer would be and continues to be the food police. The on-farm hurdles we’ve faced, from drought to predators to flood to cash flow, are nothing compared to the emotional, economic and energy drain caused by government bureaucrats. Even in the early 1970s when, as a young teen, I operated a farm stand at the curb market, precursor of today’s farmers markets, the government said I couldn’t sell milk. The first business plan I came up with to become a full-time farmer centered around milking 10 cows and selling the milk to neighbors at regular retail supermarket prices. It would have been a nice living. But it’s illegal. In fact, in 2007 I finally wrote Everything I Want to Do is Illegal, documenting my run-ins with government officials.

I think it’s amazing that in a country which promotes the freedom to own firearms, freedom to worship and freedom of speech, we don’t have the freedom to choose our own food. If I can’t choose the proper fuel to feed my body, I won’t have energy to go shoot, preach and pray anyway. Half the alleged food in the supermarket is really dangerous to your health. In fact, if we removed all the food items in the supermarket that would not have been available before 1900, the shelves would be bare. Gone would be all the unpronounceable gobbledy-syllabic industrial additives, irradiated, GMO, cloned pseudo-food.

The reason this issue is hard to articulate is because most people don’t realize what’s not on the shelves, or in their diet. We’re fast losing the memory of heritage food, as in made from scratch, in the home kitchen, with culture-wide generic culinary wisdom. I remember when every mom knew how to cut up a chicken. Now, most people don’t know a chicken has bones. As the food police have demonized and criminalized neighbor-to-neighbor food commerce, the food system has become enslaved by the industrial food fraternity. And just around the corner is the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) coming on strong, under the guise of food safety and biosecurity, which will annihilate thousands of non-industrial farms. We don’t need programs; we need freedom. If we really had freedom, farmers like me would run circles around the corporate-welfare, food adulterated, land-abusing industrial farms.

Thinking About Meat

What are some of the things you want people to know about the meat they buy from you? What should we all know about the meat we eat?The main idea we promote is that our animals enjoy a habitat that allows them to fully express their physiological distinctiveness. I like to say we want our pigs to express their pigness and the chickens their chickenness. The industrial food system views plants and animals as inanimate protoplasmic structure to be manipulated, however cleverly the human mind can conceive to manipulate it.

I would suggest that a society that views its life from that egocentric, disrespectful, manipulative standpoint will view its citizenry the same way . . . and other cultures. How we respect and honor the least of these creates the ethical, moral framework on which we honor and respect the greatest of these. The freedom for you to express your Tomness or Maryness is directly proportional to the value society places on the pig expressing its pigness. And to think that our tax dollars are being spent right now to isolate the porcine stress gene in order to extract it from pig DNA so that we can further abuse and dishonor pigs, but at least they won’t care. Is that the kind of moral framework on which a civilized society rests? I suggest not.

This fundamental understanding drives our production models. Herbivores in nature do not eat dead cows, chicken manure, dead chickens, grain or silage: They eat fresh or dried forage. Of course, what’s neat is that empirical data is discovering the nutritional and ecological benefits of this paradigm. We’re reading about Omega 3 and Omega 6 balance, conjugated linoleic acid, polyunsaturated fats and riboflavin. Whenever a new laboratory confirmation of our philosophy hits the news, we make sure our patrons know about it. In a word, this is all about healing: healing our bodies, healing our economies, healing our communities, healing our families, healing the landscape, healing the earthworms. If it’s not healing, it’s not appropriate.

Perhaps because it’s such a hot topic, let me address the cow-global warming argument. Every bit of the alleged science linking methane and cows to global warming is predicated on annual cropping, feedlots and herbivore abuse. It all crumbles if the production model becomes like our mob-stocking-herbivorous-solar-conversion-lignified-carbon-sequestration fertilization. America has traded 73 million bison requiring no petroleum, machinery or fertilizer for 45 million beef cattle, and we think we’re efficient. Here at Polyface, we practice biomimicry and have returned to those lush, high organic matter production models of the native herbivores.

If every cow producer in the country would use this model, in less than 10 years we would sequester all the carbon that’s been emitted since the beginning of the industrial age. It’s really that simple. Without question, grass-finished, mob-stocked beef is the most efficacious way to heal the planet. We should drastically drop our chicken and pork consumption and return to our indigenous, climate-appropriate protein source: perennial forages turned into red meat and milk.

Do vegetarians ever challenge you about raising meat? If so, what do you say in response?I will answer this in two parts. The first has to do with the people who think a fly is a chicken is a child is a cat — what I call the cult of animal worship. This would include the people who think we’ve evolved beyond the barbaric practice of killing animals to some cosmic nirvana state where killing is a thing of the past.

Rather than indicating a new state of evolutionary connectedness, it actually shows a devolutionary state of disconnectedness. A Bambi-ized culture in which the only human-animal connection is a pet soon devolves into jaundiced foolishness. This philosophical and nutritional foray into a supposed brave new world is really a duplicitous experiment into the anti-indigenous. This is why we enjoy having our patrons come out and see the animals slaughtered. Actually, the 7- to 12-year old children have no problem slitting throats while their parents cower inside their Prius listening to “All Things Considered.” Who is really facing life here? The chickens don’t talk or sign petitions. We honor them in life, which is the only way we earn the right to ask them to feed us — like the mutual respect that occurs between the cape buffalo and the lion. To these people, I don’t argue. This is a religion and I pretty much leave it alone.

The second part of this answer deals with folks who don’t eat meat in order to vote against animal abuse, concentrated animal feeding operations, or pathogenicity. And to be sure, many of these folks have bought into the environmental degradation inherent in livestock farming. To these people, Polyface is a ray of hope. I could write a book about the patrons who have come to us at death’s doorstep because they needed meat, and we’ve watched them heal. To be sure, not everyone needs meat, and those who do have varying levels of need. And when people find out that grass-based livestock offer the most efficacious approach to planetary health, their guilt gives way to compensatory indulgence. After all, they have to make up for lost time, and routinely become our best customers. Their emaciated vegetarian faces fill out, their strength improves and they are happier. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to just give them a Weston A. Price Foundation brochure. We keep them in our sales building like religious tracts. Oops.

All About the Farm

How have you been affected (or not affected) by the recent increase in grain prices?
This depends on which species we’re talking about. Let’s start with the poultry. Broilers will pick up only 15 percent of their diet off the pasture; layers 20 percent; turkeys 30 percent or more. Since birds are omnivores, they can’t survive on grass alone. Waterfowl jump on up to more than 50 percent. We’ve watched our local genetically modified-free grains double in price over the last 24 months. In response, we’ve raised our chicken and egg prices about 25 percent. Grain is only a portion of the cost, so all we have to do is raise the price enough to compensate for the grain. The amount required to cover these exceptionally high grain prices only amounts to less than $2 per bird. A family buying 50 chickens a year would only pay an additional $100 to cover all the additional feed costs. Of course, the industrial food poultry giants say they can’t pass along these costs to their customers. I don’t know why, but I think it has to do with the idea that people will only pay so much for junk.

Typically, hogs are similar to chickens, but here at Polyface we’re making an end run by finishing pigs on acorns. Just in the nick of time, we discovered an efficient, cheap way to fence out sections of forest with electric fence. Using quarter-inch nylon rope as poor-boy insulators, we zig-zag a single 12.5 gauge Tipper Tie aluminum wire from tree to tree and erect three- to five-acre finishing glens. In our native Appalachian oak forests, each acre displaces $500 worth of grain. That translates to about $50 per hog in expense, which is enormous. It has allowed us to keep our hog prices fairly stable even with the huge increase in grain prices. We put the pigs in for one month and remove them for 11 to rest and to let the next acorn crop fall. It actually helps the trees, because the pigs root out competing brush and brambles for their starchy roots, in effect weeding the woodlot. All parties win. Very exciting. And if you think about the millions of acres of forests and realize that they could displace tilled, petroleum-based, subsidized, annual grain cropland, you begin to see the potential of this model.

Finally, salad bar beef. This is the most exciting, because it is completely immune to grain prices. It requires no tillage, no fertilizer, no feed transportation or drying costs. It runs on real time solar energy, self-harvesting with four-wheel drive self-propelled sauerkraut tanks. At Polyface, we believe we’ve become the least-cost producer in an artisanal market, which pushes the gross margin both ways. That’s pretty cool. As a result, we have not raised our beef prices at all, and are watching with great satisfaction the squirming and postulating within the feedlot industry. They don’t need any bailouts. Let them die. To place all of this in historical context, we should all realize that until cheap energy, beef was always the cheapest meat while pork and poultry were the luxuries — especially poultry. When President Roosevelt said his vision for America included “a chicken in every pot,” he was talking about today’s filet mignon. With cheap fuel, cheap grain, cheap labor and cheap pharmaceuticals came cheap poultry. In the continuum of human history, poultry-cheaper-than-beef is a veritable blip. For nutritional, environmental and social reasons, I think it would be fine for the historical beef-poultry relationship to be restored. And most things do eventually find a way of coming home.

Describe some of the ways you sell your products. You’ve made it a general principle not to ship anything, but there are several ways you sell products locally.We have three marketing venues: farmgate, restaurant/retail and metropolitan buying clubs. For the farmgate sales, we send out a newsletter once a year, in the spring, and patrons order for the season from that schedule. We used to sell everything that way, but with frenzied schedules and gas prices, resistance to driving out to the farm started becoming an issue. We live way out in the boonies on a dirt road where the only time you have to lock your car is in August to keep the neighbors from putting runaway zucchini squash in it. This still accounts for 30 percent of our sales. We have public hours, 9 to 4 every Saturday, and that allows us to serve the non-ordering people without sales interruptions throughout the week. Our simple sales building contains scales, freezers and counters to handle these customers.

Restaurant/retail we lump together because we deliver to them on Thursdays and Fridays every week and they pay about the same prices — a bit of a volume discount. A delivery fee per pound and scaled to volume pays for a vehicle and driver. Several nearby cheese, produce, mushroom and honey growers add their wares to our delivery bus and that helps the distribution economies of scale. We service about 25 upscale restaurants and about 10 retail venues, primarily specialty foodie-type businesses. My daughter-in-law, Sheri, calls these patrons on Tuesday for that week’s orders. Several restaurants in Washington, D.C., use an independent courier to come to the farm and deliver their orders. Among these restaurants is one fast-food establishment: the Charlottesville branch of the national Chipotle chain. This has been a huge undertaking for both of us, but heralds a new awareness of local and ecologically sound food. These venues account for 30 percent of our sales.

The metropolitan buying clubs grew serendipitously out of quarterly farmgate sales from three Maryland patrons who asked us to deliver to their area for all their friends who would not make the trek to the farm. This has grown to 20 drop points and we deliver to them eight times per year. The same delivery driver and infrastructure that services the restaurants services these patrons. They order via electronic shopping cart (www.polyfaceyum.com). Each drop point must average an annual sales quota and patrons are rewarded with free product for bringing in new customers. This venue provides neighborhood service, low overhead and complete inventory shopping options. We don’t deal with farmers market commissions, rules, product speculation or politics. It’s the ultimate marketing below the radar and keeps us out of the supermarket, with its slotting fees, red tape and tardy invoice payments. This venue now accounts for 40 percent of our annual sales.

We hope to add an additional venue in the next few months: Sysco via abattoir. In the summer of 2008, we (my wife Teresa and I) along with a partner purchased our local federal-inspected abattoir, T&E Meats, in Harrisonburg, Va. Institutional demand for local, humane and ecological products is growing, but vending contracts preclude purchasing outside large distributor channels. For example, University of Virginia contracts its dining services to Aramark, which contracts its food vending to Sysco. But Sysco requires $3 million liability insurance, hold harmless agreements and other forms before purchasing from anyone. This is a serious impediment to local producers. Having acquired this abattoir, however, we hope to use its high product liability policy as a backdoor entry into the institutional market. Stay tuned.

You’ve done a lot of work encouraging other people to learn to farm through your books and your apprenticeship program. What are some of the challenges you think that new farmers will have to face?The first and greatest challenge is experience — how to do more with less and how to solve problems creatively rather than with something purchased. Land is more available now than it has been in decades. With half of America’s farmland due to change hands in the next 15 years due to the aging farmer, a lot of this land will be available for management at extremely modest cost, owned by family members who aren’t ready to sell, or by new e-boom buyers able to afford to buy. In any case, the weak link will be a track record and experience to take a piece of raw land and make it profitable.

I think the opportunities are practically unprecedented. We had an apprentice leave two years ago and within three months had offers for 1,000 acres to manage in New York — at virtually no cost except to use it and keep it aesthetically and aromatically romantic. That’s what healing farming is all about, and why it has so much possibility. What landlord wants a Tyson chicken house built on their farm? But all of them love a pastoral setting, especially being able to entertain their city business partners with grass-finished steaks on the porch overlooking your herd of cows. The problem is that our culture tells bright, bushy-tailed young people that farming is for backward, D-student, tobacco-chewing, trip-over-the-transmission-in-the-front-yard, redneck Bubbas.

When was the last time you heard a group of parents bragging? Ever hear one say, “Well, you can have your doctors, lawyers, accountants and engineers. My kid is going to grow up and be a farmer.” Ever hear that? Not on your life. The biggest obstacle is emotional — overcoming the cultural prejudice against splinters and blisters. That is why I talk about economics and marketing, along with the mystical, artistic elements of the farm. Yes, it’s a lot of work. But what a great office. What a noble life. What a sacred calling.

Megan E. Phelpsis a freelance writer based in Kansas. She enjoys reading and writing about all things related to sustainable living including homesteading skills, green building and renewable energy. You can find her on Google+.

(Continued)
I knew something wasn't right, something had to change. So after much turmoil I went and read up on the "evil" Weston Price website. When I overcame the conditioned reflex of disgust at the notion of eating an animal, (an actual living moving KICKING SCREAMING animal!) the message, the studies, the data, all began to make sense.
I've only been eating meat for the past 4 months, and I already feel more energetic as opposed to the old lethargy; my health checkups have been looking up as well. My mom even said I'm "glowing with health," now looking at photos from the past years, I have to agree. The weight is coming down as well, slow and steady.
The things Salatin say are true, but he is also a good salesman/preacher, so the way his message comes across might turn some people off.
The best we can do for the animals is to let them express their nature; and the best we can do for ourselves is to allow ourselves to express our own nature, and always be thankful.
Some recommended reading:
http://www.westonaprice.org
The Omnivore's Dilemma
*The Vegetarian Myth (eating plants won't stop animals from dying, organic does not equal to humane treatment of animals, etc. important, terrible things.)

cassie_6

9/7/2010 6:17:18 PM

To all the angry vegetarian/vegans here, I've been a vegetarian for the past QUARTER of my life, and my health has been on the decline for most of it. The first few months I felt great, with all the crap clearing out of my system on a diet of plant-only foods. But it was because ANY diet, even one devoid of all traces of animal-nutrients, is better than the typical way of eating for the average American like myself. My mother became increasingly worried and commented on how "greenish yellow" I appeared, but i just ignored her and went my own way; after all, my conscience is all clear that no animal had to suffer a hellish existence to provide for me. Now I'm was not ignorant of the basic nutritional needs of a human body, I have taken several courses in human anatomy, nutrition, and sports nutrition, so I was convinced that I've been giving my body all it needs to function properly.
How wrong I was.
Even with all the spinach and supplements I was shoving in my mouth my iron count was dropping like a dead body. I also needed more protein even though I was eating about 50% more than required, through lentils, beans, grains, and mostly soy.
I work out frequently, at least 5 days out of 7, but my muscles just refuse to grow. That didn't stop the waistline from growing though; in the past 5 years alone my middle expanded by 8 inches. My growth also stunted right when I "came clean."

Olive Farmer

8/4/2009 1:14:56 AM

Lovely article. I farm olive organically here in Crete where olives have been farmed this way for 4,000 years.
My blog www.olivefarmercrete.blogspot.com (not commercial) deals with the soul as well as the soil.

Theresa_16

7/25/2009 3:57:43 PM

As much as I respect Salatin's approach to raising animals humanely in their natural environment and his goal to treat them with respect, I found some major faults with his viewpoints on other issues. As a strict vegan (and a person who's health was completely turned around when I became a vegan 5 years ago), I was disgusted at his comments regarding vegetarians. I would not call the belief that all life is sacred a "cult of animal worship", far from it. A living being is a living being, capable of feeling pain and fear and worthy of our respect and compassion. I find his depiction of 7 year olds gladly slitting animals throats disturbing. Obviously we are raising children in a culture in which animals are seen as hamburgers and chicken nuggets and not as sentient beings with their own worth, emotions, and intelligence. And we wonder why the news is filled with stories of children who torture and dismember cats, dogs, and other animals. I also thought that Salatin's views clashed with Mother Earth's (and even Salatin's own supposed) support of the environment when he dissed parents "cowering in their hybrid cars". This man's vocabulary seems to be based in stereotyping all who might disagree with his views.
I'm not a militant vegan who refuses to associate with meat-eaters, and I admire those who work to bring humane, environmentally-sound practices to raising animals used for food. But I do not respect people who resort to name-calling and exaggeration in an attempt to ridicule and discredit anyone with opposing views. I was excited to read this interview because I thought that a man who strived to raise animals humanely and sustainably would be someone who could help cool off the sometimes heated debate between meat-eaters and vegetarians. However, I was greatly disappointed at his old-fashioned, narrow-minded, and hateful comments toward a responsible, admirable, and environmentally conscious lifesty

Rachel _1

1/10/2009 11:20:52 AM

Great article!
I am concerned, however, that the newest offensive against our sustainability as gardeners and farmers is the idea of "owning structure"; that is, land being owned and operated by corporate structures and investors with no regard for anything beyond money.
Has anyone taken a look at this article?
Thanks for a "light" at the end of a very scary tunnel!
"Food Is Gold, and Investors Pour Billions Into Farming," The New York Times, June 5, 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/business/05farm.html?_r=1

TheGreatMidwest

1/4/2009 10:24:20 PM

Joel Salatin, I hope I get to meet you one day, you're great. I laughed, I cried, I took notes, what a great inteview. I wish farmers didn't need to be mavericks, but from the sound of your journey, they need to be. Meanwhile, my relatives in Indiana are being paid by this great government of ours NOT to farm their land. How that program still exists is beyond words.

Ohiowordguy

10/16/2008 2:47:50 AM

This guy is my new hero!
I stumbled on this article while doing research for an orchard I am planning. This is EXACTLY the kind of information that people in this country need to hear. Processed agrifoods need to be wiped out and replaced by small farms! And believe me, the "food police" are very real. Do a little homework on the NAIS animal ID system that Salatin mentioned, and you will discover that it is an orchestrated effort to wipe out small family farms. I also could relate a story about how an undercover USDA "cop" entrapped a local farmer, and it nearly cost him his dairy license -- yes, you need a license to milk cows! Only direct intervention by a state legislator and intense public pressure saved the farmer.
For those of you who dispute what Salatin says, I challenge you to re-examine your own ways of thinking, and how what you have been taught in school, heard from media sources and otherwise "learned" has shaped your thinking/beliefs. And please, some of you, set aside your "too smart for religion" prejudices! Last time I checked, it is not yet illegal to be a Christian! Also note that he did not generalize all vegetarians. Actually, to the contrary.
I have 38 beautiful acres in Holmes County, Ohio that we purchased from family two years ago. I am taking a lot of time and doing a lot of research as I make my plans to become a farmer. What I have discovered is there is a huge groundswell of both producers and consumers who are latching on to the truths that Salatin speaks. We need to listen to people who are willing to say the emperor has no clothes, rather than trying to maintain/boost an agri-system that is slowly poisoning our population!
P.S. I subscribe to an excellent publication called "Hobby Farms" that addresses a lot of the producer-based issues that outside-the-box small farmers face. I think many Mother Earth News readers would enjoy it as much as I do.

M's

10/12/2008 11:18:19 AM

I'm proud to say that I've been a vegetarian for 2 years now, and I don't miss meat at all. I don't need meat to be healthy, and in fact, I could lose a few pounds. My husband is a meat-eater (that hails from Hereford, Texas-the meat capital of the world), so I cook meat for him because I love him (and because he says he won't be a vegetarian). I choose not to consume any myself because of the inhumane industry that Mr. Salatin is fighting against. If all farms operated as well as his does, then I would maybe consider eating meat again. I don't think there is anything wrong exactly with eating cows, chickens, and pigs. I just don't like the way the industry treats them before, during, and after slaughter. Until something changes, I don't plan on eating meat ever again. Judging a vegetarian is like judging someone with brown hair. Everyone is different. I think his comments were uncalled-for and very narrow-minded. By the way, everyone I know of that tried a veg diet temporarily (for health reasons), felt great and loved having more energy.

BETTY Joseph_2

10/8/2008 6:34:29 PM

Congratulations on your "beyond organic" approach.
My friend and I raise about 100 broilers & turkeys each year and do all of the processing ourselves.
I only sell to close family/friends because of regulations
in CA. My biggest problem is in pricing. How do you
decide price per pound? CA feed prices are so high this year ($17.95-$20 per 50lb bag of turkey or broiler feed) and lack of rain there is not much natural grass. I let my chickens clean up after my Boer goats hay waste and feed flakes of alfalfa($15 p. bail) to my turkeys. Even though my meat, eggs & vegies are organic I would never go to the expense of being certified. I feel God has given me my six acres to be a steward of. Even though we are being swallowed up by city we are fighting to keep our rights to raise animals and even though I can only dream of 500 acres I am so thankful for what I have. Keep up the fight!!

Ted Cooper_1

10/7/2008 7:55:35 AM

First off I would like to compliment Joel Salatin on his humane going BEYOND ORGANIC methods of farming. Most interesting to myself, after the agriculture, was his thoughts and comments about FOOD CLUSTERS.
For a number of years now I have been talking up what I refer to as SELF SUFFICIENT IDENTIFIABLE MARKETING NETWORKS. The concept started out as a unique and effective method of enhancing tourism revenues but with additional scrutiny it appeared more like a realistic survival plan.
Joel mentions "CLUSTERS". My theory is based on "NETWORKS". Networks that once identified work towards self sufficiency through localized production of not just healthy food but other products as well. The experts agree that 2006 was the year of peak oil production. From here the price per barrel will only INCREASE as the supply diminishes. American food travels 1500 miles on average. Canadian food a whopping 5000 miles. Something has to change!
Joel's FOOD CLUSTERS rings a bell !
South Dakota developed their INTERSTATE INFORMATION CENTERS. Thirteen focus communities located on their interstates have information centers that speak of that community plus the ameneties and communities within the surrounding area. Their tourist visitations have increased 29%. Cody Wyoming adopted the NETWORK theory and if you visit their site check out the DRIVING TOURS using Cody as the base.
IF you take the NETWORK as displayed by Cody and superimpose that over South Dakota's interstate FOCUS communities the whole theory is explained. Then think of that identified network working towards SELF SUFFICIENCY and the network becomes a distribution route. In actual fact into that network you can plug in Joel's six components to make a whole: Production, Processing, Marketing, Accounting, Distribution, Customers.
Makes a lot of sense. Joel Salatin ahead of his time!
Ted Cooper.

spidermonkey

10/2/2008 11:09:53 AM

ok on the veghead comments you know full well the ones he is discussing. when some people decide ' oh those poor animals' and solely cut meat out of their diet and waste away get anemia. it is a challenge. my self i hav know a self proclaimed vegan in leather preaching the evils of killing animals. we are omnivores and there are some nutrients that are rare to get from veggies. general health and weight is effected more by portion control than meat if you order meat other than 4 oz fillet mignon it is way too much. and it is not necessary to eat meat 3+ times a day every day.
we seen the environmentalist drive up to the emmys/ what ever hollywood event in limos or SUVs. this magazine and org gardener do more good than 1 mil of the elitist snotty eviro-nuts
i loved this article and would love to know how he gets away with no winter job and if he takes government farm subsities

xtina

10/1/2008 9:16:00 PM

Mikki,
Salatin only offers on-farm internships to men because he only has one housing unit with shared bath and bed facilities. I believe he explains that on the site.
It looks like on the polyfaceyum.com site that there are several female interns, so perhaps this has changed. I don't believe Joel to be a misogynist. I believe the women in his family participate in the farm operation in whatever way they choose to.
To Gene and E.C. Sharpe, I believe the message is not for extremism but for everything in moderation, and I believe this is the key to Salatin's entire operation. The article describes natural diets for the various animals he raises. A natural diet for a human is omnivorous. It's why we are physically designed the way we are. Each human's balance point for equilibrium is different. Not everyone requires meat to be healthy. But the design is for a bit of everything.

Laurie in San Diego

10/1/2008 4:56:54 PM

Salatin's christianity is his reason for sounding so cultish and gender biased. It comes at no cost to him, however, for he is obviously "a great shmoozer" and responsible for hundreds if not thousands of people eating a more natural and healthier diet.
That he irritates vegetarians and grows great eggs won't be what he is remembered for, but his middle-finger salute to governmental interference into our national food supply will be what makes him infamous.
His farming methods should be taught to every person who raises animals for slaughter; from 4-H to university. Perhaps in 10 to 15 years as the remnants of us older humans raised on agrichemicals die from diseases tracked to industrial pollution of our food supply die off, our children, our future, will see that there is no (better) future with chemicals.

Chia

10/1/2008 1:05:07 PM

I have thought Joel Salatin was a nut for years. I am surprised to see him featured on something so "mainstream" as the Mother Earth News website. While he is undoubtedly a great farmer, his problems with government most likely stem from his interest in militias. I seem to remember him being banned from a farming forum for his contrary ways some time in the past. Maybe he has learned to play well with others.

Mikki

10/1/2008 12:12:54 PM

I enjoy Mr.Salatin's ideas and his compassion for the animals he raises, I would ask him, however; why his website advertises:
"An extremely intimate relationship, the apprenticeships offer young MEN the opportunity to live and work with the Salatin's."
I am a woman, hoping to one day own a farm and raise food for my family. Why are the apprenticeships only open to men?? I would love to know Mr.Salatin's position on this, especially since Pollan's book "Omnivore's Dilemma" portrays Salatin and his son and several male apprentices doing farm work, while his wife and other women are only mentioned at dinner time- mainly in reference to the cooking.
I hope I am wrong in my assumptions here...

Shelly_2

10/1/2008 12:03:55 PM

I just recently read Mr. Salatin's book "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal" and absolutely loved it. I am intrigued by the methods that he uses and that he is able to maintain a "beyond organic" farm in this day and age. His approach to land management is not only beneficial to the land but extremely humane to the animals which live off his land. If I am ever in the Swoope Virginia area, I would feel privileged to be able to visit the PolyFace farm.

Gene_2

10/1/2008 10:33:06 AM

continued...
To Mr. Salatin, I would ask if he believes we should reduce our consumption of beef and if his economic model holds up to that.

Gene_2

10/1/2008 10:30:50 AM

Even though I have a few differences with Mr. Salatin, he comes across as very intelligent, articulate and sincere. His grasp of the issues is very progressive and a welcomed breath of fresh air and I agree wholeheartedly with his approach to the science of farming. I wish him great success as a model of farming policy here in the US. I had to wince at his portrayal of vegetarians but I understand firsthand that there are zealots in every pursuit and he was right not to pursue those of religious fervor. I do think that vegetarians should not be dismissed as a group though. Some vegetarians, such as my wife, have come to believe that we as a species no longer need to take the lives of other living animals to survive. When our daughter was born, my wife left her fast tracked life working for a major auto manufacturer to be a full time mother. To be a HEALTHY vegetarian requires lots of preparation/variety, etc. That is why some folks don't do well - not enough commitment to researching, buying, preparing fresh produce, nuts, grains, etc. As Mr. Salatin points out, many folks have forgotten or lost the cooking skills of previous generations.
To elaborate a bit, my father-in-law was a meat cutter by trade and had his own shop, processing local grown beef and pork. We've always had an OVER abundance of meat in our diet and subsequently I ended up with gout and polyps. One day, while devouring some absolutely delicious prime rib in celebration of our wedding anniversary (some years ago), my wife turned to me and said "this is the last meat I'll ever eat." She and I both had been extensive outdoors folks, hunting and fishing together. But she just no longer wanted to be responsible for another living thing losing its life. I love the flavor of meat but I also chose to reduce substantially my intake of it and feel that my health is better for it. (No polyps this last check.) To Mr. Salatin, I would ask if he believes we should reduce our consumptio

Mark_3

10/1/2008 5:41:02 AM

To E.C. Sharpe, To call him a bold faced liar is a bit extreme. Vegetarianism did to me exactly what he described. We all have different bodies and metabolisms and just because your healthy, doesn't make him a liar. I would reconsider your comments.
I enjoyed the article and would like to hear about more of this type of farming operation. Thanks

E.C.Sharpe

9/30/2008 5:08:25 PM

As a strict vegetarian since 1979, I was particularly interested in Mr. Salatin's comments about vegetarianism. But when I read, "Their emaciated vegetarian faces fill out, their strength improves and they are happier ", it was immediately apparent that this is just another con artist posing as a business man, determined to turn a profit by whatever means necessary. Had he ever actually met any vegetarians, he'd know that there are plenty of us who are quite healthy. Some of us even have to watch our weight. But I'm sure his tall tales go over well with the "I feel like I should be veg, but I really don't want to" crowd.
I'm glad Mr. Salatin talks about the importance of at least allowing the poor animals destined to be slaughtered some sort of dignity. Trouble is, since he has told at least one obvious, bald-faced lie in this interview, how can I believe anything else he has to say?

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